Table of Contents

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National Firearms Survey, 1999 (ICPSR 4552)

Principal Investigator(s):Hemenway, David, Harvard University. Harvard School of Public Health. Harvard Injury Control Research Center

Summary:

This survey was undertaken to obtain information on the
characteristics of gun ownership, gun storage and gun carrying
practices, and weapons-related incidents in the United
States--specifically, use of guns and other weapons in self-defense
against other people. Data were collected using national random-digit
dial telephone surveys completed between March 19, 1999 and July 13,
1999. Sampling was suspended after the school shooting in Littleton,
Colorado on April 20, 1999, and resumed aft... (more info)

This survey was undertaken to obtain information on the
characteristics of gun ownership, gun storage and gun carrying
practices, and weapons-related incidents in the United
States--specifically, use of guns and other weapons in self-defense
against other people. Data were collected using national random-digit
dial telephone surveys completed between March 19, 1999 and July 13,
1999. Sampling was suspended after the school shooting in Littleton,
Colorado on April 20, 1999, and resumed after a cool-down period.
Part 1, Survey Data, contains the coded data obtained during the
interviews, and Part 2, Open-Ended Verbatim Responses, consists of
open-ended answers provided by the respondents. Four qualifying
questions were asked, dealing with: (1) gun ownership, (2) gun display
against the respondent, (3) gun use in self-defense against another
person, and (4) the use of a weapon other than a gun in self-defense
against another person. A "yes" response to a qualifying question led
to a series of additional questions on the same topic as the
qualifying question. Information was collected from all respondents on
the perceived safety of their neighborhood, whether they would feel
safer if more people owned guns, whether guns should be allowed in
public places, whether gun injuries were a problem in their community,
whether they would favor or oppose a program to reduce gun injuries,
and whether they had ever been shot with a gun. Respondents living in
households that currently contained a gun were asked how many and what
type of guns were present, the main reasons for owning a gun, whether
any of the guns were loaded and unlocked, and whether they had
received formal firearms training. Questions about incidents in which
a gun was displayed in a hostile manner against the respondent
included the number of times it took place, how long ago it had
occurred, whether the respondent was in the military or police force
at the time, the location of the incident, whether the individual
displaying the gun was known to the respondent, whether the respondent
had a gun, and whether the police were contacted. Respondents who had
used a gun or other weapon in self-defense in the last five years were
asked about the number of times it took place, the location of the
incident, whether they were in the military or police force at the
time, the type of weapon used, whether they knew the other person,
whether this individual also had a weapon, whether the police were
contacted and arrests made, and what crime was committed. Additional
questions asked respondents whether they smoked cigarettes, drank
alcohol, whether they had gotten married, had had a fire in their
home, and had been hospitalized for a fracture in the past year, and
whether they had ever had contact with extraterrestrial life.
Demographic variables include sex, age, race, education level,
household income, type of residential area (e.g., urban, rural, etc.),
and age and number of children in the household.

Access Notes

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Universe:
Persons aged 18 and over living in households with
telephones in the United States.

Data Types:
survey data

Data Collection Notes:

(1) The data file in Part 2 was converted to Portable
Document Format (PDF), and some information, such as exact place of
employment and city names, was removed to ensure respondents'
anonymity. No other changes were made to the file. (2) According to
the principal investigator, comparisons of responses to the questions
important to this study before and after the school shooting in
Littleton, Colorado revealed no significant differences. (3) Per
instructions from the principal investigator, a code of 2 was recoded
into 5 in variable VE64, and a code 99 was recoded into 9 in variable
VE101. (4) Values in variable VE65 are expressed in military time. (5)
The CASEID variable was created for use with online analysis.

Methodology

Sample:
This survey is a random sample of United States
households, selected by random-digit dialing, with sampling
proportional to the total population of each of the 50 states based on
1990 Census figures. It is nationally representative at the household,
not individual, level.

Mode of Data Collection:
telephone interview

Response Rates:
Of the 10,774 telephone numbers that were randomly
selected, calls to 2,588 yielded contact with households that were
determined to be eligible (E) for the survey. Sixty-seven of these
households (3 percent) declined to participate, yielding 2,521
households that completed the survey (C). Two thousand seven hundred
eighty-nine numbers were ineligible (I), because they were not working
or were not residential, and the eligibility of 5,397 was not known
(U) because there was no answer. Using a Council of the American
Survey Research Organization formula [C/(E 1 (E/E 1 I)*U)], a response
rate of 49 percent was calculated. This response rate is comparable to
that of other national surveys on firearm ownership and falls within
the response rates for most Behavioral Risk Factor Survey firearm
modules.

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: